Dear President Ouattara: We are writing to ask that you uphold press freedom now that you have taken office. We ask that you ensure that journalists and media outlets close to former president Laurent Gbagbo are allowed to report freely, and take all necessary steps to solve the disappearance since 2004 of French-Canadian journalist Guy-André Kieffer.

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Dear President Biya: We are very concerned about an ongoing pattern of abuses against press freedom in Cameroon. In particular, we are alarmed by recent death threats against an editor, the recent prosecution of two others by a military tribunal, and the lengthy imprisonments of another two on libel charges. We call on you to use your influence to end practices that are undermining the free flow of information.

CPJ research indicates that the following journalists have disappeared while doing their work. Although some of them are feared dead, no bodies have been found, and they are therefore not classified as "Killed." If a journalist disappeared after being held in government custody, CPJ classifies him or her as "Imprisoned" as a way to hold the government accountable for the journalist's fate.

New York, February 5, 2008—Authorities in the Ivorian economic capital of Abidjan indefinitely suspended the FM broadcasts of France-based Radio France Internationale (RFI) on Friday. The reason given was the absence of a permanent correspondent in country, according to news reports and local sources.

In a telephone interview with CPJ, Frank Kouassi, the secretary-general of Ivory Coast’s National Broadcasting Council, accused the station of unethical coverage of the country, citing “several cases of unbalanced information and analysis often out of touch with reality.” He declined to provide specific examples, adding that the government could no longer tolerate such practices. RFI, he said, had failed to appoint a permanent correspondent in the country by a Thursday deadline set by the council in December 2007.

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The news media were caught in the middle of political tensions that have split the country between a government-ruled south and a rebel-held north since 2002. In the south and west, militant groups harassed, intimidated, and attacked media outlets as a U.N.-backed power-sharing government installed at the end of 2005 failed to bring much progress on disarmament. Elections were postponed for the second time in two years, and the aftermath of a deadly toxic waste dumping scandal fueled a public row between interim Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny and President Laurent Gbagbo.

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In a climate of violence and political tension, journalists were frequently threatened, assaulted, and censored. The country has been divided since a 2002 uprising into a rebel-held north and government-held south. Some 10,000 French and United Nations peacekeepers oversee a fragile cease-fire. The rebels kept the press in their areas on a tight leash, but pro-government forces carried out the majority of the attacks on the media reported in 2005.

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New York, February 1, 2006—French authorities have jailed an Ivoirian army officer in connection with the 2004 disappearance in Ivory Coast of journalist Guy-André Kieffer, according to Kieffer's wife and Agence France-Presse. Osange Silou-Kieffer told CPJ today that Capt. Jean-Tony Oulaï was arrested on January 11 in Paris and is being questioned by a French judge investigating Kieffer's disappearance. On January 26, a Paris court rejected a motion seeking Oulaï's release.